


Each and Every One of Us

by waltztangocache



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Family Fluff, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Secret Samol 2020, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29114940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltztangocache/pseuds/waltztangocache
Summary: For all the hard nights spent sleeping on forest floors and the long days spent walking, there was something joyful about living a life that was all hers, all on her terms, about waking up and deciding how she would spend her day and where she would go purely based off what she wanted.Of course, she had grown used to the alternative, now. The Last University had been stable - okay, well, it hadn’t necessarily been stable, but it had been something.(Adaire and her family in the years after the frost shepherds come.)
Relationships: Adaire Ducarte/Adelaide Tristé/Hella Varal, Adaire Ducarte/Hella Varal
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6





	Each and Every One of Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laminated_newspaper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laminated_newspaper/gifts).



> hi! this is a secret samol gift for tessa laminatednewspaper, who requested hella/adaire/adelaide parenting content - i hope you enjoy reading as much as i enjoyed writing! title comes from the spring in hieron soundtrack
> 
> this is about 80% compliant with the end of sih. the big things are: 1. adaire’s epilogue says she changes her name. i love that lore detail but i also didn’t feel like dealing with that shit lmao so she’s adaire still. 2. when i was about 80% done with this i remembered that there was some fucked up sun stuff going on in the rhysome and i didn’t feel like looking that up and changing it to comply so i guess this is an au where the sun just keeps doing its thing. there are probably more inconsistencies but oh well lol that’s not my business anymore! also: according to the sih09 transcript, rix and roe are 15 and 12 respectively when they’re introduced - i was surprised at this when i read it but that’s what i stuck with, making them 17 and 14 during the first vignette!
> 
> content warnings: traumatic injury and recovery, references to destructive fires and death (in the context of hella’s job), physical distance and missing people, canon-typical melancholy

Adaire had really never minded her life on the road. She imagined this would be surprising to most people, though she tended not to have many opportunities to share that fact and find out. It was true, though. For all the hard nights spent sleeping on forest floors and the long days spent walking, there was something joyful about living a life that was all hers, all on her terms, about waking up and deciding how she would spend her day and where she would go purely based off what she wanted.

Of course, she had grown used to the alternative, now. The Last University had been stable - okay, well, it hadn’t necessarily been stable, but it had been something.

Adaire cast one final look over her shoulder, down the rhizome limb they were walking down (jesus fuck), to see the Last University. It was nearly hidden from view, now, only the tallest points peeking over the shortened horizon. She turned her gaze back forward. The Last University was over now. That chapter of her life was as over as the one before she was Adaire to begin with. To be honest, it was darkly nostalgic to once again be leaving somewhere in the dead of night.

They stopped to rest as the sun was beginning to come up, settling down on the ground next to a tree that turned out to be spongy like a mushroom on closer inspection. Travelling alone, Adaire probably would have pushed on until evening, but Rix and Roe weren’t used to travel, and Hella’s stamina had been impaired by the whole statue-lady thing. Hella herself was sat up on a root that jutted up from the ground, in the hopes that that would make standing up again a bit less arduous. She was sweaty and slightly winded, clearly tired from the travel. Hella took a swig from her canteen and noticed Adaire staring, giving her a smile and a wink in response. The slower pace was worth it, Adaire thought to herself.

“Hey Adaire?”

She shook herself from her thoughts. “Yes Roe?”

Roe was small for 14, unsurprising considering what Adaire had heard of life at the Last University before she and Hella had arrived. Probably it was also genetic - Rix had been a late bloomer too. Roe was clearly exhausted, drained in a way that made Adaire automatically anxious. People erratic when they were tired, and Adaire wasn’t sure she had the tools to handle a crisis if this turned into one. “I know we don’t know where we’re going, but how will we know when we’re at the right place?”

Rix rolled her eyes and scoffed, and even before she said anything Adaire could tell Roe wouldn’t like her response. “We just will, dumbass.”

Adaire pinched the bridge of her nose. Not a great start. “Don’t call your brother a dumbass, Rix.”

Rix looked outraged. “But- but what if he’s being one?!” Her protests were loud enough to scare Barbello’s head out of her lap.

“First off, please keep your voice down. Second, even if he is, still don’t, you’re his sister and you should be kind to him. Third, I don’t think he was being a dumbass, I think that was a good question.” Adaire looked back at Roe. “We don’t know where we’re going because anywhere could hypothetically be the right place. The right place, the place we stay, will just be,” she said, waving a hand in the air, “the place that ticks the most boxes, so to speak, in the kind of place we want to be in.”

Roe was listening intently, and had his brows knit together. “What kind of boxes?”

“Well,” Adaire said, “first priority now is that it’s somewhere where an angry mob isn’t going to come kill Hella and I.” Adaire had decided fairly quickly that there wasn’t much point in hiding the truth of their situation from the kids - they deserved to know, and she figured that at 17 and 14 and with the kind of lives they had had, they would be able to handle it well enough. Sure enough, both of them were solemnly nodding. “Other than that, it should probably be near to a town or two, but not right in one.” Adaire thought for a second longer, then continued, “and I don’t know that the four of us would be able to build a house by ourselves, so maybe we could, I don’t know, find a cave? Or something?”

“We could live in a tree,” Rix said thoughtfully.

Roe laughed. “What, like monkeys?”

She scoffed again. “No, Roe, like carve one out.”

Adaire hummed and looked over to Hella, who raised her brows. “We could,” Hella said.

Adaire shrugged. “Well, we’ll see if we find a tree big enough. Why don’t we pack up our stuff and you two can keep an eye out,” she said, hauling herself back up to her feet.

“You’re good at that, y’know.” Hella was smiling down at her as they started back down the trail.

Adaire ducked her head. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“No, you are. I probably would have just…” Hella chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t know what I would have done. Told him to stop asking questions maybe, like, ‘when we get there I’ll let you know.’ You really know how to talk to him, though, it’s impressive.”

“Thank you, I-.” Adaire tried to think of what else to say, but came up blank. Maybe that was all she needed. “Thanks, Hella.”

Hella’s smile got even brighter. “Anytime.”

~

Rix’s latest scheme went something like this: she had bought a book about card tricks a while back, and she and Margie had spent enough time staring at it to have learned a couple fairly consistently. They had managed to secure a little table, which they had set up in a little side street near the market square, just the right balance of having people around but not so many or ones so idle that people were bound to see, for example, an orange-haired 19 year old lifting coins from the pockets of those who stopped to watch a beautiful young woman do magic. Not her most elegant grift, but she was gonna get use out of that card trick book somehow, damnit.

They had been pulling similar plans for a couple months now, and Rix thought the two of them made a good team. Where Rix was steeley and determined, Margie was easygoing and charming, and where Rix was liable to get frazzled when trouble inevitably came, Margie was evergreen calm in a way that was impossible to teach. Most importantly, Margie was game for any plans Rix could think up.

Rix rounded the corner down the road, as she had done at least a half-dozen times since they’d arrived an hour or two earlier, and spotted her next mark. It was a young woman, only a couple years older than she was, with a high ponytail of light brown hair and suspenders. She had a hand laid flat on their little table, half watching Margie’s dark hands move the cards, half watching Margie herself, leaving none of her attention on the wallet in her back pocket.

Rix bumped into the woman, lifting the wallet in a well-practiced motion. “Sorry!” she said, tucking it into her own pocket.

The woman spun around, schooling her face into a strained smile. “Be more careful, please.”

Rix bristled internally, moving to walk past. “Of course, miss.”

Before Rix could move past, one of the woman’s arms shot out, blocking her path. “I’d like my wallet back, also.”

Rix’s blood ran cold. She reflexively glanced over to Margie, which the woman caught, because, y’know, nothing in Rix’s life could ever be easy. Just as she was turning around to look at Margie, Rix becoming more sure by the second they were about to be run out of town, there was a voice behind her. 

“Is this yours, miss?” There was Adaire, holding out the woman’s wallet in her gloved hand. “You dropped it a ways back.”

The woman’s face went slack, then flushed red. “Oh. Thank you very much, Miss…”

Adaire smiled. “Ducarte.”

The woman smiled back at her, more genuine this time. “Trenton Whipstitch, pleased to meet you. Thank you very much for the help, and for,” Rix stiffened as she clapped a hand on her shoulder, “helping us with our misunderstanding.”

Adaire smiled in a thin-lipped way that meant she thought this situation was extremely funny. (Margie did too, clearly - Rix could hear her stifling a laugh.) “No problem, Miss Whipstitch.” 

Trenton turned around again, facing Margie. “Very sorry for all the trouble, miss. I have things to be attending to anyway, but I hope to see you around here again one of these days when I’m not so occupied. This is a lovely town, I’d love the chance to show you around.”

Margie laughed and winked at Trenton. “Well, I’ll have to make sure to come back soon, won’t I?” Rix felt a pang of jealousy, which she carefully chose not to examine.

Trenton was off, then, down the street the way Rix had come, leaving her to sigh and look at Adaire. “How long have you been there?”

“Not too long,” Adaire said, leaning forward to brush something off Rix’s shoulder. “You should be glad I needed to go to the market today.”

“Do you have any thoughts on our con, ma’am?”

Adaire smiled wide while Rix rolled her eyes. “Yes I do, Margie. Let’s pack up your table and I can give you some tips on the way home.”

Rix scoffed. “I thought we were doing pretty damn well, Adaire!”

“You were,” Adaire sighed, “but you can do better. If you’re going to con people you need to do it without my help. Part of me thinks you built this whole plan around getting some use out of that book of card tricks you bought.”

Margie laughed loud. “Your mom has your number, Rix.”

“Mind your business, Margie,” Rix said, smiling even as she rolled her eyes.

~

Adelaide was not a children person. She wasn’t a family person in general, really. This was a portion of Hella’s life she felt terribly ill equipped to be in, even having known her for a decade, now. She loved Hella, though, and Adaire as well, if in a different way. And she loved the children too, of course, but more than anything she found them… perhaps compelling was the word.

Rix was a bright and reckless young thing, 20 and bony, always off running schemes with that other girl, Maggie or Maivald or something. Adelaide didn’t recall what she was like at Rix’s age, thousands of years ago at this point, but she felt a mortal part of herself in her bluster. Roe, on the other hand, was gentle in a way that Adelaide found shocking. He was a big-hearted 17 year old, more than she would have expected his hard childhood to allow.

She was always happy to help out, all that is to say. She wasn’t called upon for those kinds of things often - Rix and Roe were, of course, quite self-sufficient, even more so as they had gotten older - but sometimes Hella needed her, and Adelaide had always enjoyed being relied on.

Roe had been out on a walk, and had had a bad fall, the kind that left him needing help from a passing traveller to get home. Adaire and Rix were both away, in towns a branch or two over doing dubiously legal things, and Hella had knight business that couldn’t be delayed (death waits for no man, so they say), and so Adelaide had expended the energy to physically manifest herself into their home to wait for-

Dr. Dudras slipped out of the bedroom where Roe was laid out. Xe had a grim look on xir face that made Adelaide’s heart start to sink. “Are you the boy’s caretaker?”

“I suppose I am.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I told him,” xe sighed. “Roe has a couple fractures in his lower leg and a shattered kneecap. The leg should heal up fine with rest, but a knee is a different thing - in all likelihood he’ll be walking with crutches or a cane for the rest of his life.” 

“Okay, okay.” Adelaide knew it had been a bad fall, but this still was more than she had been expecting. 

The doctor scratched at xir jaw. “For now, like I said, lots of rest. I brought some pain relieving herbs with me, and something for any swelling he experiences. I’ll have my assistant bring a set of crutches over that he can use to get himself around for the time being.”

As Dr. Dudras left, Adelaide idled by Roe’s door. Caring for children wasn’t one of her strengths, but helping people feel better could be described as one of her weaknesses.

Adelaide knocked, and heard a quiet “come in.” There was Roe, lain out on the bed, gazing up at the ceiling.

Adelaide pulled the small chair in the room over next to the bed and sat down. “How are you feeling, Roe?”

“Like I broke my leg,” Roe deadpanned.

“I wonder why,” Adelaide deadpanned back. No, she thought to herself, try again. “What do you think of all of this?” 

Roe sighed. “I don’t know, Adelaide. It’s hard to deal with right now.” He paused. Adelaide waited. When he spoke again, she could hear him holding in tears. “I keep thinking about how this’ll change things. I’m not gonna be able to run around with my friends anymore.”

“Well, that’s alright-”

“No, it isn’t!” Roe snapped.

Adelaide sighed. “Let me back up, that isn’t what I meant.” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “This is an adjustment. It’s hard, and I’m sure this was a frightening thing to go through. But I’m here for you, and so is the rest of your family, and your friends will be too, even if you can’t do everything you’re used to doing.” 

She sighed. “I’ve been alive a long time, and no day of my life has been what I expected it to be the day before. I certainly never thought I’d be looking after a teenager for more than… well, for any period of time, really.” Roe laughed at this, softly, and she smiled. “My life isn’t what I expected, and that was hard for a long time, but I still love the life I have.”

Roe was quiet for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Adelaide. I should, like, rest up or whatever though.”

“Of course.” Adelaide stood and walked to the door. “Rest up, Roe, feel free to call if you need help with anything.”

“I will,” he called.

Adelaide shut the door and leaned against the wall. That could have gone worse. She crossed back over to the kitchen table, wondering to herself if there was anything in Adularia she could fashion into a cane.

~

Roe was startled out of his thoughts by his sister snapping her fingers directly in front of her face. She laughed when he turned to glare at her. “Adaire wants you to pass the green beans.”

It was fairly cramped at the moment, with the six of them squeezed around it - they had already been pushing it on nights when Adelaide had come around, and the addition of his sister’s crime partner/fiancee meant they were all bumping legs at any given moment. Hella looked at him from across the table as he passed the dish to Adaire. “Is everything alright, Roe?”

“Yeah, Hella, I’m just thinking.”

“What about?”

Roe sighed. “This person was staring at me all day when Dr. Dudras and I were at the market, I’m trying to figure out why.”

Rix hummed. “Maybe they thought you were someone they knew?”

“Rix, how many red-headed cane users do you think there are around here?”

“I don’t know Adaire, maybe they thought he was another redhead they knew who had started using a cane!”

“Or someone with a cane who had dyed their hair,” Margie added, laughing.

Adaire rolled her eyes. “In my experience, medicine stands at markets always attract attention. Maybe they were just looking at your wares.”

Roe sighed again. “Dr. Dudras and I are there every week, is the thing. I’ve been going the entire time I’ve been working for them.” He had begun his apprenticeship after he and the doctor had hit it off while xe helped them recover from his leg injury. That meant nearly two and a half years of Monday morning markets at this point. “That whole place is used to me by now. And even if they weren’t from around here, how uncommon is a doctor anyway?”

Adaire waved a hand in the air. “Depends on how legitimate of doctors we’re talking about."

“Maybe they thought you were attractive.” The table went quiet as everyone looked at Adelaide. “Well, that’s what it usually is for me!” she exclaimed.

“I think she’s right, actually, that would make sense,” Margie said, nodding.

Rix let out an over the top gasp. “Traitor!”

Margie laughed. “Nothing personal, dear. Just, if they were looking at you that much, them being into you is probably more likely than the alternatives. I mean, you’re a nice looking guy, objectively, so why wouldn’t they?”

Hella was nodding too, now. “And they didn’t come up and talk to you, did they?”

Roe’s face had grown progressively hotter over the course of the conversation. “No, they didn’t.”

“Well, if they thought they knew you, they probably would have, right? Versus if they thought you were hot, maybe they would’ve been nervous to.”

Rix nudged him in the side with her elbow. “Roe has a secret admirer,” she said, waggling her eyebrows.

Hella smiled teasingly. “The one that got away.”

Roe buried his head in his arms. “I’ll leave,” he joked. “I’ll go eat in my room.”

(When Roe arrived at Dr. Dudras’s office the next day, the person was there, eventually introducing himself as Wynn. They would confirm later, years later, long after they needed to, that he had, in fact, seen Roe from across the square and thought he was very handsome. That was, as far as Roe was concerned, need-to-know information - his family would never let him hear the end of it.)

~

Hella had had a long day, even before she got home. There had been a fire in the nearest real town, that had left a number of people injured - she ended up presiding over the deaths of two people, then after that volunteering to help move debris. By the time she arrived home she ached, the stone in her body as tangible as it had ever been, and the sun was already threatening to set.

The house was quiet. It often was, these days - the kids were away more than they weren’t, with homes and jobs and partners of their own, and even Adaire was often gone doing whatever job she was doing at the moment. There were letters in the mailbox, one from Hadrian and one from Lem, and Hella set them on the kitchen table before stepping back outside.

Hella sat down in the dirt, at the top of the hill where she had lived for longer than she had ever lived anywhere. It wasn’t right to say she felt lonely there, but there was something different about this place, this home carved into a tree, compared to the last place she had thought of as home. Life at the Last University was a distant past, but one that wasn’t easy to forget, even a decade later. That place was a part of her, and the people even more so.

It was good to be loved, Hella thought, and to be thought of, but it helped to be with people. That was what the two of them had given Rix and Roe, at least.

Hella could see Adaire, now, coming over the hills towards her. She stopped at the top of one, just for a second, and raised a hand in a broad, goofy, over-head wave. There was this, too - a silver lining so big that it outshined its cloud. That was her wife, goddamnit, and there were only so many years in a lifetime, and they had wasted so many already pretending they meant less to each other than they did.

Hella stood up as Adaire got closer. She imagined how this evening would go - they would eat dinner, and Hella would write letters to the people she loved, and then they would go to sleep, and she would wake up one day closer to the next time she saw those people. She imagined the days cycling on like that forever, spinning up into years like cotton candy, but, then, probably things would change before they got there. At the very least, she had now.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on twitter @waltztangocache or on tumblr @fourteenfifteen
> 
> here’s a lil timeline of the vignettes, along with rix and roe’s ages:  
> Adaire’s: 0 years post-sih, ages 17 & 14  
> Rix’s: 2 years post-sih, ages 19 & 16  
> Adelaide’s: 3 years post-sih, ages 20 & 17  
> Roe’s: 6 years post-sih, ages 23 & 20  
> Hella’s: 10 years post-sih, ages 27 & 24


End file.
